Chicagoland – Page 7 – The Menace of Privilege

Planned office tower may take double subsidy

rendering of 444 W Lake St proposal — rendering from Chicago Sun-Times

Two or three developers (depending on which source you read) plan a new 45-story, 900K sq ft, $300 million office tower at 444 W Lake Street. In the world most of us were born into, this would mean they’d purchase the site, continue to pay taxes on it, and on the building when constructed. Thus the prior landowner would benefit from the transit and other infrastructure that we all provide, some part of this cost being offset by taxes resulting from the project.

This particular building, tho, may be a special case, to be built on air rights over the north approach to Union Station, tracks owned by either Metra or Amtrak. So public transportation would benefit, right? It doesn’t appear so, because, I think pre-Amtrak, the old Chicago Union Station Co. sold off the air rights. The Sun-Times says Larry Levy owns the “site,” presumably including the air rights.

Still, the building will yield taxes which help the comunity pay, right? Not in today’s Chicago. Blair Kamin says we’ll pay $29 million in real estate tax money to the developer, to build a park. A commenter elsewhere suggests it might be $40 million. Whichever, of course, that’s on top of all the subsidies we pay to provide transit service and maintain infrastructure without which this building would be infeasible.

The Tribune helpfully notes that the project “is expected to generate … 3,400 permanent office jobs.” Apparently those office jobs will be created to fill the building and would not otherwise exist in Chicago. The details of this mechanism are beyond me.

Almost the best use of CTA rail map for political purposes

Cute automation at the Chicago Spring site. Best thing: your visit restores the East 63rd Street ‘L’. Second best thing: Click on a link, it takes you around the map to a destination. Less good thing: the destination seems to have nothing to do with the subject treated. Still, it’s a cool presentation.

Somebody somewhere can do something equally original, and even more functional, for the Henry George School.

Is the community collecting the rent at 31st Street Harbor?

linked from Chicago Public Building Commission Chicago Park District’s new harbor at 31st street reportedly cost $103 million and can accommodate 1000 boats. “Rates for the new harbor range from about $3,780 for a 35-foot slip to more than $10,000 for the longest slips of 70 feet and more, excluding taxes and a 25 percent nonresident surcharge.”

One could imagine that these figures might actually cover debt service, maintenance, and the economic rent of the lakefront location. But there’s no such indication in the Park District’s 2011-15 Capital Improvement Plan, which lists funding and projects, but makes little effort to tie the two together so there’s no indication of how much any project costs nor how it’s paid for. Nothing in the latest posted (2010) Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, either.

But in the process of browsing the District’s web site, I did discover that I would be violating their regulations if, without a permit, I post on this web site a photo that I took on Park District property.

The Public Building Commission has some information on their web site, including some contracts and many construction photos. Can’t wade thru all of the former, but they appear not to include any information on how the project is funded.

Securitizing the banksters, with cameras and contracts

Image credit: J D Abolins via Flickr (cc)

Just in case there was any doubt, Pam Martens in Counterpunch gives us a report on the Lower Manhattan Security Coordination Center, where feeds from sophisticated spy cameras are integrated to essentially track anyone and everyone on the streets who might interest our supervisors. What’s news here, tho I suppose I already suspected it, is that partners in this operation are not just the NYPD, but also “the same firms under investigation in 50 states for mortgage and foreclosure fraud and widely credited with causing the Nation’s economic collapse.” Presumably they have added some of the proceeds of their crimes to the $150 million public money that’s been used for this project.

It’s difficult to believe that Chicago doesn’t have something similar.

Meanwhile, and I suppose it’s more relevant to us here, the CTA will be paying up to $58,000/month, plus commission, to Goldman Sachs and other “financial advisors.” The Authority assures us such amounts “are comparatively very small compared to the billions of dollars in much-needed funding CTA would secure” if such commissions are paid. “Funding” more likely means “loans” or “new ways of packaging existing streams of money” rather than any actual additional resources or capture of land value which transit could create.

Maybe credit unions are more fun than banks

Credit Union Ad — source: London Permaculture via Flickr (cc)

This post is about credit unions, and it seems to be turning into a rant. Rather than read it, I suggest you go here to see some entertaining short videos that the credit union folks have put together. My experience has been a bit different.

Occupy Wall Street are good folks, I’m sure. I even tried to display their banner on this blog, but for some reason the plugin doesn’t work here. Anyhow, they suggest I get away from the big banksters and open an account at a credit union.

I actually take advantage of the big banksters in a couple of ways, but that’s not for this post. Continue reading Maybe credit unions are more fun than banks

Drug prohibition coordinates politicians and “gangs”

Pilsen — image credit: Rosalyn Davis via Flickr (cc)

David Bernstein and Noah Isackson have a pretty good article in Chicago Magazine, Gangs and Politicians in Chicago: An Unholy Alliance. Focusing mainly on Alderman but also including State and Federal legislators, they assert that “gangs” provide the money, votes, and workers that enable officials to attain and retain their office. In exchange, the governments these legislators control provide funds and favors.

Isackson and Bernstein stop short of suggesting how to repair this problem, but reading thru the article it’s clear that the main way these “gangs” prosper is thru unauthorized distribution of drugs. And one of the main favors aldermen provide is assistance in avoiding “law enforcement” efforts to arrest them. End the drug prohibition, most of the “gangs'” income will end, and candidates will no longer get “gang” money. They’ll have to rely on crooked lawyers, lobbyists, etc.

Some of the drug money, of course, has gone into real estate, with “gang” members able to get favors such as rezoning and inspection waivers. A land value tax, by constraining real estate speculation, would be of assistance here.

Outrageous assessments

Gary Lucido writes of a small parcel at 3710 N. Kenmore, offered at $9.9 million ($4950/sq ft) after failing to sell when offered at lower prices. While the price seems outrageous, the property is very close to Wrigley Field and could be used for a billboard or rooftop viewing platform. We know that the former use has commanded $350,000/year on a nearby building, which seems to justify a multi-million-dollar asking price.

So we have a parcel worth, let us say, five million dollars. What are the taxes? Continue reading Outrageous assessments

Occupying Chicago

My only excuse for not posting since last month is that I’ve been diverted with other projects, including the new hgchicago site. The bad news is that it’s still not all there. The good news is that it’s WordPress-based and that the new version of Firefox, 7.0.1, no longer freezes my OS. Never did solve the Opera vs. WordPress problem, but now I’m back to Firefox for most things.

Chicago is no longer a media center, but still important enough to have Occupy action. I stopped by Jackson/LaSalle this afternoon, there were a few hundred people with signs and a good attitude.

occupy_distract — I saw no "media" of the type that has satellite trucks and excessively attractive newsreaders, but Distract Chicago was there.

The scheduled teach-instarted nearly on time, with St. Xavier Professor Aisha

Karim speaking about Marx’s Communist Manifesto. Unfortunately, the acoustic conditions and the speaker’s accent prevented me from a full understanding of her case.

It looks from the previews like WordPress might be doing some things to my images, but I’ll wait to see the actual post.

Some cool manipulations of tax data

In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need to pay personal income tax, so nobody could compile any data about our individual income (Land value tax is linked to the land, not the owner, so owner identification isn’t needed for tax purposes.) This world being less than ideal right now, it is nice that the Tax Foundation has mined IRS data for these cool tables linking interstate migration of taxpayers and the amount of income reported. We see that, net in 2008, more taxpayers moved to Illinois from Michigan than from any other state, while the greatest number of net departures was to Texas. Altho net emigrants to Florida were less than 1/3 those to Texas, their total “adjusted gross income” was greater, presumably affluent retirees.

The Census Bureau is another source of interstate migration data. Those reports are simple population numbers with no income data attached, altho I believe the original source data includes income. The Tax Foundation’s data of course can’t recognize people who do not file federal income tax returns.

Transit advocates get more options

Not more transit options; we’re still stuck with CTA bus, CTA rail, Pace bus, and Metra rail. But now we have more advocacy options. None of them is easy to join. A biased summary (listed in descending order of web site quality) is:

If you believe transit’s main problem is that it doesn’t have enough money to spend, you can support the (newly-announced) Riders for Better Transit. It seems that you can’t exactly become a member; you can only click a box to show your support, and/or join the parent organization, Active Transportation Alliance.
If you believe that transit workers are good, kind, noble, and generous, but management is foolish, and, yeah, more money is probably needed too, you can join Citizens Taking Action. The site gives no indication about how one could join, but does announce, and by implication invite one to, their next meeting.
If you think transit riders’ main problem is that transit investments and operations are poorly planned and poorly managed, a lot of money is wasted, and, if any more money is needed, it should come from a tax on land value, because land value reflects (among other things) the quality of public transportation, then you’re invited to support The Transit Riders’ Authority. Find where it says “join TRA! Here’s a membership application:” There is no membership application, but a PO Box, phone number and email address are given; perhaps they work.